Java News from Monday, August 27, 2007

The Jakarta Apache Project has released
HTTPClient 3.1, an open source (Apache 2.0 license) HTTP 1.0/1.1 pure Java library for performing assorted HTTP operations.
"Although the java.net
package provides basic functionality for accessing resources via HTTP,
it doesn't provide the full flexibility or functionality needed
by many applications. The Jakarta Commons HttpClient
component seeks to fill this void
by providing an efficient, up-to-date, and feature-rich package
implementing the client side of the most recent HTTP standards
and recommendations."
Features include:

"Connection management support for use in multi-threaded applications. Supports setting the
maximum total connections as well as the maximum connections per host. Detects and closes
stale connections."

Cookies

KeepAlive in HTTP/1.0 and persistence in HTTP/1.1

Connection timeouts

According to Oleg Kalnichevski, version 3.1 "finalizes support for the RFC 2965 cookie
management (also known as Cookie2 or port sensitive cookies) and adds a
number of improvements to the HTTP connection management. HttpClient 3.1
is likely to be the last non-bug fixing release of the HttpClient 3.x
codeline."